that is but a poor vent when a man is straining
his strength as far as ever it will go.

I gave in, and lay quiet, and got my breath
again; my eyes glaring and straining at the
candle all the time. While I was staring at it,
the notion struck me of trying to blow out the
flame by pumping a long breath at it suddenly
through my nostrils. It was too high above me,
and too far away from me, to be reached in that
fashion. I tried, and tried, and tried — and then
I gave in again and lay quiet again; always with
my eyes glaring at the candle and the candle
glaring at me. The splash of the schooner's
sweeps was very faint by this time. I could
only just hear them in the morning stillness.
Splash! splash!—fainter and fainter—splash!
splash!

Without exactly feeling my mind going, I
began to feel it getting queer, as early as this:
The snuff of the candle was growing taller and
taller, and the length of tallow between the
flame and the slow-match, which was the length
of my life, was getting shorter and shorter. I
calculated that I had rather less than an hour
and a half to live. An hour and a half! Was
there a chance, in that time, of a boat pulling off
to the brig from shore? Whether the land
near which the vessel was anchored was in
possession of our side, or in possession of the
enemy's side, I made it out that they must,
sooner or later, send to hail the brig, merely
because she was a stranger in those parts. The
question for me was, how soon? The sun had
not risen yet, as I could tell by looking through
the chink in the hatch. There was no coast
village near us, as we all knew, before the brig
was seized, by seeing no lights on shore. There
was no wind, as I could tell by listening, to
bring any strange vessel near. If I had had six
hours to live, there might have been a chance
for me, reckoning from sunrise to noon. But
with an hour and a half, which had dwindled to
an hour and a quarter by this time—or, in other
words, with the earliness of the morning, the
uninhabited coast, and the dead calm all against
me—there was not the ghost of a chance. As
I felt that, I had another struggle—the last—
with my bonds; and only cut myself the deeper
for my pains.

I gave in once more, and lay quiet, and
listened for the splash of the sweeps. Gone!
Not a sound could I hear but the blowing of a
fish, now and then, on the surface of the sea, and
the creak of the brig's crazy old spars, as she
rolled gently from side to side with the little
swell there was on the quiet water.

An hour and a quarter. The wick grew
terribly, as the quarter slipped away; and the
charred top of it began to thicken and spread
out mushroom-shape. It would fall off soon.
Would it fall off red-hot, and would the swing
of the brig cant it over the side of the candle
and let it down on the slow-match? If it would,
I had about ten minutes to live instead of an
hour. This discovery set my mind for a minute
on a new tack altogether. I began to ponder
with myself what sort of a death blowing-up
might be. Painful ? Well, it would be, surely,
too sudden for that. Perhaps just one crash,
inside me, or outside me, or both, and nothing
more? Perhaps not even a crash; that and
death and the scattering of this living body of
mine into millions of fiery sparks, might all
happen in the same instant ? I couldn't make
it out ; I couldn't settle how it would be. The
minute of calmness in my mind left it, before I
had half done thinking ; and I got all abroad
again.

When I came back to my thoughts, or when
they came back to me (I can't say which), the
wick was awfully tall, the flame was burning
with a smoke above it, the charred top was broad
and red, and heavily spreading out to its fall.
My despair and horror at seeing it, took me in
a new way, which was good and right, at any
rate, for my poor soul. I tried to pray; in my
own heart, you will understand, for the gag put
all lip-praying out of my power. I tried, but
the candle seemed to bum it up in me. I
struggled hard to force my eyes from the slow,
murdering flame, and to look up through the
chink in the hatch at the blessed daylight. I
tried once, tried twice; and gave it up. I tried
next only to shut my eyes, and keep them shut
—once—twice and the second time I did it.
"God bless old mother, and sister Lizzie; God
keep them both, and forgive me." That was all
I had time to say, in my own heart, before my
eyes opened again, in spite of me, and the flame
of the candle flew into them, flew all over me,
and burnt up the rest of my thoughts in an
instant.

I couldn't hear the fish blowing now; I
couldn't hear the creak of the spars; I couldn't
think; I couldn't feel the sweat of my own
death agony on my face—I could only look at
the heavy, charred top of the wick. It swelled,
tottered, bent over to one side, dropped — red
hot at the moment of its fall—black and harmless,
even before the swing of the brig had
canted it over into the bottom of the candle-
stick.

I caught myself laughing. Yes! laughing at
the safe fall of the bit of wick. But for the
gag I should have screamed with laughing. As
it was, I shook with it inside me — shook till the
blood was in my head, and I was all but
suffocated for want of breath. I had just sense
enough left to feel that my own horrid laughter,
at that awful moment, was a sign of my brain
going at last. I had just sense enough left to
make another struggle before my mind broke
loose like a frightened horse, and ran away with
me.

One comforting look at the blink of daylight
through the hatch was what I tried for once
more. The fight to force my eyes from the
candle and to get that one look at the
daylight, was the hardest I had had yet; and
I lost the fight. The flame had hold of my
eyes as fast as the lashings had hold of my
hands. I couldn't look away from it. I
couldn't even shut my eyes, when I tried that
next, for the second time. There was the wick,